SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday said the highly contentious Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) bill is among the new laws that President Marcos Jr. is scheduled to sign into law on July 18.
Zubiri said this was the information relayed to his office by the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO).
In a text message to Senate reporters, Zubiri said that aside from the MIF, the President will also sign the bill extending the period to avail of the estate tax amnesty.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian last Tuesday told reporters that Marcos will sign the two proposed legislation before his second State of the Nation Address on July 24.
Malacañang last week received the enrolled copy of the Maharlika bill, which proposes the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) using state assets.
The measure has generated much flak from its critics, particularly Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III who has insisted that the government cannot afford to set up a sovereign wealth fund because it does not have a surplus of funds, which is a primary requirement for SWFs in other countries.
Pimentel has likewise repeatedly questioned the Senate rush in approving the bill, saying that marathon committee hearings were held without proper public consultation and that lengthy plenary discussions were set until the wee hours of the morning.
The minority senator has also warned the Maharlika bill has been allegedly tampered with by members of the Senate Secretariat, who made clerical and typographical corrections to the approved version of the measure.
Citing the Rules of the Senate and the Constitution, Pimentel, along with Senators Risa Hontiveros, Jinggoy Estrada and Chiz Escudero, said that only elected senators can make substantial changes to measures that have been approved on the third and final reading.
Such revisions, they said, have to be made in plenary while the Senate is in session.
The Senate Secretariat, in “cleaning” the final copy of the bill, merged Sections 50 and 51 into one section. The section in question pertains to offenses and crimes committed in the implementation and management of the Maharlika Fund.
Zubiri and other administration allies have insisted there was nothing wrong with the Senate Secretariat merging the two sections as these were supposedly in pursuit of the instructions of Sen. Mark Villar, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions which sponsored the MIF bill.
